


You've Got Hawaii (and all I've got is you)

by queenklu



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:43:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Danny has issues, presents, and Steve fleas, not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got Hawaii (and all I've got is you)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [giandujakiss](http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/) who won me at [help_japan](http://help_japan.livejournal.com/). I am so, so sorry this is stupidly late, and I hope it's to your liking! All the thank yous go to the glorious [imkalena](http://imkalena.livejournal.com/), who knocked this story into the shape it wound up in, and to [leupagus](http://leupagus.livejournal.com/), who promised to write me something if I would just get off my ass and finish the damn porn.

Nothing bad happens before his drive to Steve’s house; he doesn’t get cut off in traffic, his coffee doesn’t spill, he woke up in the morning on the right side of the bed and everything—the right side of the bed being, for someone who had been married more years than he cares to think about, smack dab in the middle of the mattress. The middle is a good place to be. There is sprawling room, and all the covers he wants, and no big empty space beside him because his unconscious mind reverted to five years ago and made room for a person who by all accounts would rather set his bed on fire than sleep in it again.  
   
Anyway. He splurges on the coffee—Kona Coffee’s chocolate macadamia nut blend because no one is here to judge him—and downs it all before the third traffic light. So his thoughts are spinning in dizzy little hyper-caffeinated circles, but not a single one of them can figure out what exactly is getting his Jersey up. It’s yet another beautiful day in the neighborhood, they don’t have a case yet, he’s just swinging by to pick up Steve on their way to the office like he does almost every other morning; nothing is different or weird or wrong.  
   
Except for the white package on Steve’s doorstep.  
   
And the fact that Steve’s newfangled alarm code is Danny’s birthday, which is not funny, Steven, not funny at all.  
   
Danny walks in the door with a low whistle, because what. What is he even supposed to think about that? When Steve had told him those numbers were the combo, Danny had really, _really_ thought Steve was kidding, and had only tried it out this morning to be an asshole and get Steve to tell him the real code in the midst of the ensuing sound of alarms and police sirens. Because it’s a number Danny needs to know—and Kono and Chin, just in case—and he hadn’t appreciated being jerked around.  
   
But apparently Steve had been dead fucking serious when he’d said the code was Danny’s birthday. And so Danny says, “Yo,” as he struts in the house, because he’s not sure where this is going but he’s pretty sure it’s going to land them in argument territory and keep them there until they pull up and park at the office.  
   
Which. Steve is not dressed for. Not even a little bit. Not even by McGarrett standards do track pants and purple tank top make an outfit suitable for a day at Five-Oh.  
   
“Yo,” Steve returns, his back still to Danny as he uses about a million paper towels to dry his hands. _Dry his hands,_ when a dish cloth would work just as well and kill approximately a billion fewer trees and there’s another argument they’re going to have today, why Steve feels it’s necessary to carpool with Danny to save gas and the environment when he goes through paper towels like—well, like Danny goes through hair products. Maybe Danny will let this one slide.  
   
Steve is blathering about courtesy knocks when Danny starts listening again, so Danny gives him one, one-two-three against the door like he would like to one-two-three against Steve’s head. Because Steve isn’t dressed yet, and if he says those words aloud—bad shit would happen. It’s not like Danny needs to feel any more like Steve’s wife than he already does.  
   
Steve’s eyes narrow and his head jerks at the package in Danny’s hands, arms folding over his chest. “What’s in the box?”  
   
Danny has two seconds to decide a Brad Pitt imitation would not be appropriate at this point in time. Nor would a crack like _Gwyneth Paltrow’s head_ , _what do you think?_ Danny would bet based on Steve’s DVD collection that Steve doesn’t watch crime movies that aren’t buddy cop, so odds that he’s seen _Seven_ are probably pretty slim.  
   
So—and this is the slo-mo replay, by the way, this is Danny going through every little moment afterward with a fine toothed comb, wondering what exactly happens here, but the best he can figure is this: Danny tilts his head up, spins the package in his hands, and says, “I got you a present.” And when Steve repeats him, Danny adds, “Yeah, I wanted to put a smile on your face.”  
   
Because he likes fucking with Steve, and he likes pushing Steve’s buttons, and Steve isn’t _dressed_ for _work_ and there’s some sort of aching buzz at the nape of Danny’s neck telling him today is off, today is different, and so Steve goes, “Really?” all half-smiling and warm-fuzzies, and Danny says, “No.”  
   
Even though the smile shifts into well-practiced _you got me_ , probably learned in the playground and perfected in the SEALs; even though 99% of Danny’s job these days seems to be exactly of the putting-a-smile-on-Steve’s-face variety, whether intentional or not (Miranda Rights should never be funny, Jesus); even though it’s a totally dick move, Danny doesn’t really get it at that moment, or the moment after, when he’s giving Steve shit about ordering online. He doesn’t get it until the second Steve’s phone rings—  
   
Steve had _wanted_ it to be a present from Danny.  
   
\--and Steve says “We’re on our way,” and the moment is gone, because whatever shit just went down, it’s going to have to wait for Steve to put some real pants on and what was he even doing this early that would necessitate track pants, if he’s sweaty they’re going to have to wait for him to shower, really, Steven, _really_ , and the words spill out of Danny’s mouth and Steve bats them back like he always does, and then there’s an actual fucking head in a box.  
   
Danny’s day goes downhill from there.  
   
~*~  
   
If Steve had given him even 48 hours, Danny could’ve gotten him that master cylinder—his dad’s best friend knows his shit about classic cars, and wouldn’t dare rip off a Williams—but Steve is the kind of person the universe bends rules for, and the universe brought him the one person on the island with a ’74 Mercury Marquis part they were willing to give Steve in gratitude for immigration papers hot off the presses.  
   
And it’s a little bit frustrating. Not that Steve even knew the guy had parts for his Marquis. Not that Steve would ever do something like what he did and _expect_ anything in return. Because Steve does shit like this all the time—hotel reservations at a dolphin resort for a guy he had barely met, just so the guy’s daughter might have a good time with her father over the weekend. That sort of thing. _All the time_. Steve lives on this plateau of Above And Beyond, and fuck—  
   
Steve is still fondling the master cylinder when Danny gets back from ringing his dad and apologizing profusely with as many (unseen) hand-gestures as he knows how, canceling the order, and Steve looks pleased and settled in a way he hadn’t been when they’d left the airport with little Miss Femme Fatale in the back of HPD’s version of a town car. Danny’s damage control might even be superfluous at this point, but oh the fuck well.  
   
“Yo,” Danny says, hip-checking the table.  
   
Steve’s eyebrows arch up. “Yo, again? This gonna be a thing?”  
   
Usually Danny would have a snappy come-back to that. Something charming and witty like, _Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you don’t like it,_ but—this day has just been strange, and he’s done with it. He settles for making a face.  
   
“Did you come over just to say yo?” Steve grins, half-swiveling in his chair. He snorts at his own cleverness before he can get the next bit out: “Babe, you had me at _yo_.”  
   
“Can’t a guy come over to appreciate your gravitas?”  
   
Steve’s grin stretches at the corners like a cat stretching in the sun, is what it does. It’s all warm and slow and Danny has to look away before this metaphor gets out of hand. “My _gravitas_ ,” Steve says, “Did you really just—my _gravitas?_ ”  
   
“What? What?” Danny asks, hands wide. “Can’t a grown man express appreciation for his partner’s ability to charm the pants off a person? Or car parts, as the case may be?”  
   
Steve’s smile goes a little wobbly somewhere in there, but then he’s smoothing his thumb over some important metal nub and he’s not thinking about Danny anymore. Danny just knows Steve isn’t, the way he knows pineapple is not meant to be on a pizza.  
   
“We did a good job today,” Steve says, nodding at his master cylinder.   
   
“Overall, I got no complaints,” Danny baits, because, well. He doesn’t, really, he just wants Steve to argue with him.   
   
“You?” Steve laughs, tipped back a dangerous degree. Danny has to stop himself from righting the chair like he would if it was Grace, flipping one of her pigtails to show he isn’t doing it to be mean, and later she can have a juice-box if she refrains from making Danno worry about her falling. Alright, again with the metaphors, Steve doesn’t have any pigtails to—do anything with. But Danny would still like to know how the guy manages to tip back in a chair perched on nothing but wheels without crashing to the floor. Again, Danny blames the universe. It fucking owes Steve, as far as Danny is concerned, until the guy dies in his sleep at the ripe old age of a hundred and thirty.  
   
“—aren’t complaining? Is it a national holiday somewhere?” Steve is saying when Danny tunes back in.  
   
“Keep laughing,” Danny dares. He kind of means it; Steve should always laugh more, not less.  
   
“I will,” Steve assures, fractionally arrogant before he drops the act and beams.  
   
Danny lets something like pride wash up over him—because he knows pride, right, he gets whacked in the gut with the Nerf Ball of Pride every time Gracie shows him a new drawing or a good grade on a test, and this feeling is like that, but kind of headier. And it’s only a really small twinge in the bottom lining of his stomach that Steve doesn’t need him, today. Any gift he could’ve gotten Steve to make up for this morning would just be store-bought icing on top of gourmet hand-crafted chocolate mousse on top of a cake. Or whatever.  
   
“Hey, I got—“ Danny jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “I fiddled with the—thing. That thing which you and Kono assured me was perfectly legal? And I think I’ve got a season or two of CHiPs suddenly lurking in my hard drive.” Danny has no idea how this happened, really. He’s pretty sure he’d just been looking for a video clip on youtube. He blames his wonky thumbs.  
   
“Perfectly legally,” Steve assures him in a way that, surprisingly, is not all that comforting.  
   
“Yeah. Right. Whatever, I figure—you get it to play on the big screen out here, maybe I let you watch a couple with me. Out of the goodness of my heart.”  
   
 _And how is this not a gift, Danny,_ he asks himself as Steve looks intrigued and smug about something, and starts fiddling with buttons Danny didn’t even know the table computer had. But it isn’t really a present. Not really. A present is something you give to someone that they get to keep. It’s something you either made or paid for, not sketchily downloaded off some skeevy website.  
   
So it doesn’t count, and Danny still owes him…something. He’ll think of it. He kicks his feet up on the table—all four chair wheels firmly on the ground, thank you very much—and pretends not to be too relieved when Steve shifts his feet to the floor.  
   
Steve gets quiet by increments, settling into something less smiling and more worn down, like the bad parts of the day are creeping back at the edges by the time Estrada and Wilcox get off their motorcycles like they took synchronized dismounting classes. Danny wishes he’d made popcorn so he could steal some of Steve’s. But in lieu of that—  
   
“Estrada was a bad bitch, man.”  
   
“Yup,” Steve agrees. “That’s why there’s no way.”  
   
And they’re off.  
   
~*~  
   
So whatever, you know, Danny figures he still maybe has to make up for the not-gift, somehow. Like buy Steve a beer—oh wait, he already does that. Like buy Steve a wallet that stays permanently glued to his hip, so Danny doesn’t feel like he’s taking his partner out on a series of intensely platonic dates all the time.   
   
But what do you get for the SEAL who has everything? Or—he has lots of stuff, Danny realizes, but it’s all his dad’s stuff cluttering up his dad’s house. The things Steve has of his own are all outdoorsy things or…things that kill people. Or incarcerate them in some way. He has his truck, but he likes driving Danny’s car more, so Danny can’t even be a man and get him the Steve-equivalent of naked chick mud-flaps (i.e. silhouettes of sharks, or something).  
   
Steve doesn’t believe in pointless things. He believes in things he can use, things he needs, and fuck if Danny knows what that is.  
   
Maybe a ticket to an anti-violence conflict/resolution seminar. Danny would absolutely sign the whole team up if he thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that they’d attend.  
   
Mostly—if he’s being entirely honest—to see the look on the instructor’s face when Steve starts arguing.  
   
~*~  
   
Steve picks up the coffee and turns it in one hand, like it might be a bomb or the Holy Grail cleverly disguised as a Kona Coffee cup. “What’s this for?”  
   
“What, I need to have a reason?” Danny shrugs as nonchalantly as he knows how, not liking the look Steve is giving him one bit. Scrutinizing, that’s what it is; he is being scrutinized by his partner, and undeservedly so. “It’s a cup of coffee,” Danny cries, “Would you stop with the third-degree glare already?”  
   
Oh yeah, Williams. Totally nonchalant.  
   
“I bought you coffee,” Danny revises. “I did not buy you roses. Nor did I buy you a pony, or a pink VW Convertible. This is coffee; it should not create this level of incredulity in you.”  
   
Steve shakes his head a little like he’s baffled, but since Danny isn’t entirely sure that last sentence made grammatical sense he’s willing to forgive him for being slow on the uptake. A little bit.  
   
“You know,” Danny prompts after a minute, when Steve has made no move to lift the coffee to his lips, “I’d kind of hoped we’d moved past the stage in our relationship where you worried about me poisoning your morning beverages. Actually, I’d kind of hoped we’d never been in that stage in our relationship.” He gives the cup a very pointed look. “It’s the good stuff, I promise.”  
   
Steve turns it between his thumb and middle finger, left, left, then right again as he says, “Yeah, I’ll—later. I will. Thank you.”  
   
Danny’s incredulous stare shifts up to Steve’s face just in time to watch the guy try to hide a cringe. “Are you kidding,” he demands, flatly. “Steven. I didn’t poison it.”  
   
“I never thought you did!” Steve protests instantly, eyes wide and pleading for—something, Danny doesn’t have an actual clue.  
   
“Then drink the coffee! Jesus, what—“  
   
“Danny,” Steve says carefully, like stepping over a land mine. “I don’t like coffee.”  
   
Danny blinks at him. Hard. Then—  
   
“The fuck you say.”  
   
“No, I—“  
   
“McGarrett,” Danny snaps, and it’s been a long time since Danny called him by his last name, it feels weird in his mouth. It’s probably the cause for the sharp, bitter taste in the back of his throat, too. “I’ve seen you drink coffee.”  
   
“Tea,” Steve corrects, flinching. “Most of the time it’s been—tea, oh…kay, Danny, wait—“  
   
“How many—“ Danny starts, voice rising into one of those strangled incredulous shouts he hasn’t used since the divorce, “— _months_ have we been working together, and I didn’t—“  
   
“It’s no big deal! And I thought I’d told you!” Steve defends. “I definitely— At Rachel’s, remember? When we were on stake-out and—I had a tea cup, you remember me holding a tea cup—“  
   
“You were doing that to tick me off! And get on Rachel’s good side! I thought,” Danny amends, losing steam by the second in a spiraling shit-storm of failure. “You, with the cup…” He mimes drinking tea with his pinky raised basically for something to do with his hands while his brain catches up.  
   
“You aren’t— _wrong,_ ” Steve hedges, looking entirely too apologetic for this situation. “About—Rachel, not with making you—yeah. But I really do like…tea.”  
   
It hits Danny like a punch in the face, right at that moment. He has never brought Steve a drink that wasn’t alcoholic, and at night. In all the time he’s known him. Not once. Chin gets the team coffee when they don’t get it themselves, because he’s right around the corner from Liliha’s on his way to work, and being the Governor’s task force means they have a state of the art espresso machine in the break room for the times when Liliha’s isn’t a ready option. But Danny had always thought the little basket of decaffeinated tea bags had sort of been wishful thinking on the Governor’s part . . . not Steve’s beverage of choice.  
   
 “Wow,” Danny says, hand dragging through his hair before he can stop himself. “Wow, I’m—sorry. I’ll give it to Chin or something.”  
   
“I used to like coffee,” Steve says, holding the paper cup closer to him like maybe if he cradles it and sings it a lullaby it will turn into something he finds palatable. “It was—I was on my last tour, and we spent four months in India for, uh, you know, stuff, and the only coffee there is Turkish and it’s like drinking tar, okay, but their _tea_ , Danny, masala tea is just, it’s really, really good, and when I got back—”  
   
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me!” Danny cuts him off, words out before Steve even starts talking about antioxidants. “Seriously, it was a stupid impulse anyway. Give me the coffee.”  
   
Steve sets his jaw, eyes narrowing.  
   
“Constipated Badger Face, really?” Danny asks, his own expression pinching. “What the hell are you gonna do with it, enshrine it? Give me the coffee.”  
   
Danny started adding animals to Steve’s Face-names because it makes Steve seem less of a— _huh_ , Danny thinks, stops himself from using the word _threat_. Steve isn’t a threat to anyone besides criminals. But sometimes Danny will look at Steve and get this all-caps blaring warning of TOO CLOSE, TOO CLOSE, and comparing Steve to critters is—it provides a barrier. Just a little one. One last levy for Danny to stand behind.  
   
“No,” Steve says, jerking it out of Danny’s reach. “No, I’ll—“  
   
“Steven. Give me the—give me the coffee, Steven, Steve, _McGarrett—_ “  
   
So that’s how Steve winds up with minor burns on his chest and part of his hip, big, blotchy-red patches that Danny gets an eye-full of as Steve strips himself of scalding wet clothes in an impressively few number of seconds.  
   
It’s also why Chin comes in and yells at them for fighting over a beverage near an insanely expensive computer—but since it’s Chin, it’s less shouting and more staring at them in abject misery for the good part of half an hour.  
   
~*~  
   
The tsunami scare effectively shoves thoughts of gifts out of his head for a solid week—one day for the actual crisis and the other six clawing their way out from under a mound of paperwork and press conferences and ‘restoring order.’ And keeping Steve from vibrating out of his skin every time the Governor calls to chat.  
   
A drink was a stupid idea for a gift anyway. You can’t keep a drink, even if it’s one that you’d actually, shockingly, not mind drinking. It’s not enough, and the more Danny thinks about it, the more and more it’s sinking in that he actually—he really _owes_ Steve. Not just an apology for jerking his chain over a package in the mail, but _real_ things.  
   
Part of the reason Meka’s death hit him so hard was because Meka was the only guy on the force who even acknowledged Danny’s presence, let alone treated him like a fellow cop. Mainlander, _haole_ , what the hell did Danny know about their island rules that he could try to enforce them? And Meka was just one man, he couldn’t do anything about the other cops, he couldn’t stop the police chief from looking at Danny like he had been, like he was wondering why he’d hired Danny in the first place, like he was waiting for Danny to slip up just one time, give him a reason to send his ass packing.  
   
Steve had saved him from that. From going _crazy_ on this island, from killing himself trying to do his job and stay close to Grace at the same time. Steve had made that possible, just by recruiting Danny to Five-Oh.  
   
And other things. Things like getting the Governor to lean on Stan until he was able to convince Rach to let Danny keep his time with Grace. Things like teaching and pushing and sometimes bullying Danny into finding things to like about this island. Things like finding Danny a family—being Danny’s family—on days Danny can’t be near the one he used to have.  
   
Which is bigger than a fucking cup of coffee.  
   
It actually makes him sick when he starts thinking about it, when he starts making a list—dizzying, panic-attack sort of sick, because Jesus fuck. Jesus _Christ_. What did Danny ever do to deserve it? What has Danny _ever_ done for Steve?  
   
~*~  
   
“What is this?” Steve asks, pulling it free of the packaging to hold it up in the yellow light from a half-dozen neon signs. The bar is kind of art-grungy, one of the many attached to upscale resorts that like to show their customers a perfectly clean and sterile ‘seedy underbelly.’ It isn’t their usual kind of place, but Steve had said they made a really good Blue Hawaii and he knows the owner, and who was Danny to argue?  
   
“What do you mean, what is it? I thought you were Navy, sailor boy.” Danny takes it as a point of personal pride that Steve automatically goes to correct him before he realizes that Danny actually got the military branch right. “It’s a…” He pauses, just to clear his throat a little, and definitely not because he has to take a second so he can remember the whole freaking name. “It’s a Navy Special Warfare SEAL Team Challenge Coin.”  
   
“Right,” Steve starts slowly, rubbing his thumb over the bronze insignia.  
   
“So?” Danny grins, more to coax one out of Steve than any real desire to smile. “You show that to your Navy buddies and if they don’t have one, _they_ buy the drinks! Huh? Yeah? Is this good or what?”  
   
“It’s, uh.” Steve laughs faintly, spinning the coin on the bar top. “It’s something.”  
   
Danny feels like his ribcage is sinking down an inch. “You don’t like it.”  
   
“No, Danny, it’s—it’s great.” Steve turns on his stool to half-face Danny, arm held out in earnestness and his smile in place. But in this light, all Danny can see are the rough edges creeping in on Steve, and it just makes him more transparent than usual. Danny stares him right down. “No, I—It’s not that I don’t like it, okay—“  
   
“Yeah, come on, out with it,” Danny says, twirling his hand before he tucks it back into his crossed arms.  
   
Steve’s whole face scrunches into a cringing sort of apology, and finally Danny gets it. “Oh. You already have one.”  
   
“Yeah, or—two, but it’s always good to have a spare,” Steve tries. “No, really, thanks, I mean it. I’m not entirely sure what brought this on, but.” He ducks his head, so awkward and uncomfortable that Danny wants to punch himself in the face for thinking this was a good idea. Steve taps the coin on the table, biting his lip for one distracting second like he needs to gather up the courage before he looks at Danny and asks, “Am I supposed to take this as a hint?”  
   
“I—what?” Danny deflects. Because it is a hint, sort of, but. Not the way Steve is looking at him, it isn’t.  
   
“I pushed it too far, didn’t I?” Steve says, almost too fast to understand. “I’m sorry, Danny, I really—I can start buying my own drinks, or yours, or both, I just—I thought it was a—“  
   
Danny isn’t sure what Steve thought it was, but his heartbeat lurches too fast and he shuts Steve up before he has to find out. “No, Steven, listen to me, it’s fine,” he says, palms up, and what is he doing? Steve seems to be offering to actually pay for his share of alcoholic beverages and Danny’s turning him down? But he’s just sort of—winging it, Steve brings out the urge in him, so he knows it’s true when he slows himself down and says, “I didn’t mean it like that.”  
   
Steve’s eyebrows do a curious dance. “Oh?”  
   
“I just thought—your Navy buddies. Maybe they’re always whipping out their super nifty coins and making you shell out, and that’s why you don’t—“  
   
“I am more than capable of and totally willing to pay for drinks, Danny!”  
   
And Danny should know better by now, he should have detoxed a little from Jersey and realized that always rising to the bait is a character flaw of possibly dangerous proportions. But it’s _Steve_ , and Steve just—he always burrows in under Danny’s skin and _wriggles_ there, like an itch that doesn’t stop, like fucking— _Steve fleas,_ he’s got Steve fleas, and all his sensible rational thought gets buried in the instinctual need to drop everything and roll and scratch and shake until the itching goes away.  
   
So he, like an idiot, says, “Prove it.”  
   
“Prove it,” Steve repeats, in that way that Danny _knows_ Steve stole from him, “Okay, Danno, you want me to prove it?”  
   
“Yeah, I want—“  
   
“You sure? ‘Cause when I go to prove a thing that someone says needs proving, you know, I’ll prove it right up in this piece—“  
   
“What are you _doing?_ ” Danny demands, alarmed, but he has a sinking feeling in his gut saying this is Steve’s impersonation of one Detective Danny Williams, and this—oh shit—there is something about this that is suddenly screaming Steve is not in a good headspace right now, and if Danny was smarter he might’ve noticed a little earlier.  
   
And then Steve starts ordering drinks Danny has never heard of before, slaps down his credit card before Danny can stop him, and over the roar of blenders kicking into gear Danny wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into—with Hawaii, with Five-Oh, with Steve—and how much his brain has warped from the Danny who stepped off the plane, and he has to start drinking.  
   
Just to make sure Steve gets his money’s worth. And to calm the anxious clench of his stomach when Steve smirks at him, hands him two shot glasses, and says, “Camel Snot. Go.”  
   
~*~  
   
Danny is not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by claiming to remember how many increasingly ridiculous drinks get downed. Around the fifth one, Steve issues a decree that keeping score is “unallowed,” and Danny gets so affronted on behalf of the English language that he, uh, chooses to stop counting.  
   
It all turns out spectacularly, at the end of the night. Danny drops something called a Shark Tank on the floor because he’s laughing too hard—picturing Steve chucking that gun-delivering pizza guy into this bright blue margarita glass—and the glass shatters, splattering vodka-soaked Swedish fish all over Steve’s feet. Danny makes an executive decision the way only the truly plastered can, puts his hand on Steve’s chest when he slurs, “Sir, I’m going to have to cut us off.”  
   
Steve just shakes a little harder, snickering into the back of his wrist like he thinks if he’s quiet the bouncer won’t come over and lurk politely over Steve’s left shoulder as the check gets rung up.  
   
“I know,” Danny tells the bouncer, swaying closer to Steve because Steve is _drunk_ , and he might need to lean on Danny. “I _know_.”  
   
The bouncer doesn’t ask what Danny knows, because he gets it, man, he understands that these things just happen around Steve. The guy looks kind, stands like Steve does, what is it—parade rest. He says, “You boys need a cab?”  
   
“No,” Steve says, arm suddenly heavy across Danny’s shoulders. “No, we will. Beach, I think. Then taxi. My feet are sticky.”  
   
“Oh, babe,” Danny says, looking down at Steve’s flip-flops, suddenly very sad and disappointed in himself. That he couldn’t even keep Steve’s feet away from Danny’s collateral damage.  
   
“It would make me feel better if you gave the bartender your keys,” the bouncer says, almost smiling. Danny starts patting himself down before he remembers that Steve drove them here, in Danny’s car, and he’s always doing that, Danny doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t. He’s trying to explain it to the bouncer when Steve slaps the keys on the bar and drags him out the door, telling Danny, “Shh, you are drunk,” like Danny doesn’t _know._  
   
The resort is on the beach (all the best resorts are) and Danny has a feeling they should not be allowed to just stroll into a place they aren’t staying in to use their bar and wander their beach, but no one has bothered them yet and that’s probably Steve’s fault. Danny wonders if Steve considers Five-Oh to be his own personal military, and if they’re all sub-divided into Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and Air Force. If he’s the Army to Steve’s Navy. Kono is definitely Coast Guard.  
   
Steve flops them down in the sand and splashes his toes in the surf and keeps his arm around Danny’s shoulders like he’s forgotten he put it there. Danny leans into it because he’s a chump, he’s a chump and he forgets boundaries when he drinks this much. God, he hopes his hand isn’t on Steve’s leg but he has a bad feeling it might be. For balance.  
   
“Hey, hey, Danno, watch,” Steve says, nudging him until they almost fall over, and the Challenge Coin appears by magic from behind Danny’s ear.  
   
Danny scowls at Steve’s fingers, nape of his neck breaking out in goosebumps, or maybe the Steve fleas. “Cut it out with the cutesy tricks, I am not my daughter,” is what he means to say, but looking back the next morning, Danny is pretty sure the height of his eloquence at this point is, “Stop, Steve. Magic stop.”  
   
Steve laughs either way and knocks their heads together harder than he probably means to, but Danny lets him because the night is kind of cold and Steve is kind of warm and stubbled; it makes sense at the time.  
   
“Hey,” Steve says again, lower, coin balanced precariously on his thumb, “Hey, Danno, heads we do something stupid.”  
   
Danny shoves him because the last time Steve said ‘hey’ _magic happened_ —and they don’t need to do more stupid things, they do stupid _every day_ —and the coin flipping up into the air falls into the ocean with a soft _plop_.  
   
“Danny!” Steve cries, so dismayed it’s like he just watched his partner get shot, and it jars something in Danny’s chest, knocks him out of alignment. “Why did you _do_ that?”  
   
“I’m sorry, I, I—magic,” Danny stammers, scrambling in the water just deep enough to brush his elbows when he splashes, fingers digging up nothing but sand and seashells in the two seconds it takes for Steve to lunge after him and drag him back by the scruff of his neck. The babbling about his childhood phobia of random things being pulled from his orifices breaks off in a squawk of protest—it’s six inches of water, he’s not going to drown anything less than a foot as a point of pride—and then his words disappear altogether at the look on Steve’s face when Steve shakes him hard enough to make Danny’s teeth rattle.  
   
“Do you even know what riptides are?” Steve yells, slur barely even audible under the force of his enunciation. “Jesus, Danny, it’s not worth it.”  
   
And—oh. Ouch. Steve is in a standing crouch, staring down at him, ocean water dripping from his clothes and down his jaw. “…But I got it for you,” is the only thing Danny can think to say, small and confused.  
   
Steve sways a little, and then his knees hit the sand, hands still roaming restlessly across Danny’s wet shirt, face open in a way that Danny is trying to think of a name for but can’t. Danny is suddenly aware of how soaked he is, how heavy his clothes are. He shivers, and Steve’s fingers flex across Danny’s shoulders, not letting go.  
   
“I’ll be okay,” Steve says eventually, grin so lopsided he has to tilt his head a little. The lines etched into his face have blurred with alcohol and something else, this close, something Danny wants to get his hands on. Danny can hear his own breathing, and he wonders how fast the symptoms of hypothermia set in.   
   
There’s a small cough, from someone who is not either of them, and Danny is so startled he falls over, back into the sand. He can feel the little granules sneak in down the back of his collar, knows, _fuck_ , the sand is in his hair, and has to physically bite back a rant long enough to see who’s on the beach with them.  
   
It’s the bouncer from before, though Danny is beginning to suspect that he is not at all a bouncer so much as, like, a general manager. Just from the state of his shoes.  
   
“Commander McGarrett?” the guy says, either way. He’s wearing those very shiny shoes on the beach, which Danny wants to point out to him just to see if he realizes. “Mr. Fitzsimonds wanted to let you know that a room has been set aside for you, if you’d like to retire there with your party.”  
   
“A r—“ Danny starts to gape, gets a look at Steve’s face and turns it into a snort. “Oh man. Babe. What did you do for Mr. Fit—Fitsh— Mr. Fitzsimonds?”  
   
Steve’s shocked expression shifts into sheepishness. “I might’ve. Um, saved his nephew from a car bomb in Turkey.”  
   
“Course you did.” Danny palms his own face, and gets a handful of sand for his trouble. He’s on his feet spitting curse words at the beach before he really figures out how to work his limbs and wow, _wow_ standing that fast was a bad idea. Danny stumbles, almost falls, catches himself with a hand on top of Steve’s head and doesn’t think about it, _doesn’t think about it._  
   
“Okay,” Danny says when the world is a little steadier, dropping his hands to his side. “Okay, yes, room. We’ll take it.”  
   
Steve makes a choked, curious sound, half-way to standing. He probably just almost fell over. Danny ignores it.  
   
“Don’t worry,” he tells the bouncer instead, squinting fiercely into his buzzcut and the face beneath it. “In case the…Commander bit didn’t tip you off. _Navy_ ,” Danny whispers, too loud. “So, yes. Don’t have to worry about us.”  
   
“I don’t see as there would be anything to worry about, sir,” the guy says, carefully, significantly.  
   
Danny scowls at him. “That’s what I just—“  
   
“Okay,” Steve laughs, sounding strange as he trips forward and takes the keycard from the non-bouncer’s outstretched hand. “Thanks. Thank you. Tell, um, tell Pat—Mr. Fitzsimonds—“ He doesn’t even fumble the name, which boggles Danny’s mind. “Tell him thanks, too. And, this is—could we get a cot sent up to the room, d’you think?”  
   
“I told you,” Danny hisses over Steve’s shoulder, and the guy looks away fast like he has to hide a smile.  
   
“Come on, babe,” Danny adds, grabbing Steve’s forearm and tugging them in the direction of the elevators. “I’m only getting dizzier and. Shower. Yup. Sand is just—everywhere. And I blame you.”  
   
Steve kind of groans and kind of laughs and definitely covers his face with one hand, which is just a bad idea, really. Danny has to pep-talk him out of it before they both walk into a wall.  
   
Danny makes Steve take the bed, pushes him onto it and drags the covers up to Steve’s chin because when he came out of the shower Steve was just sort of swaying in the middle of the room, heavy-lidded and half asleep, and when he muzzily tries to shake his head and say Danny sleeps on fold-outs all the time, Danny says, “My gift to you, babe,” and hits at the lamp until the light goes off.  
   
Steve might make a reaching motion for him in the dark. But Danny doesn’t think so.  
   
~*~  
   
Danny doesn’t throw up in the morning, but only through sheer force of Jersey will. Steve, not so lucky, crawls from the bathroom decidedly green around the gills, deep circles under his eyes making him look exhausted and almost sad. By some sort of mutual, unspoken agreement, they decide that it’s probably in their stomachs’ best interests to keep their mouths tightly shut as they fall into the car—keys retrieved—and drive through the blinding-bright streets of Hawaii.  
   
Steve drives, because he’s a sadist. Danny makes him take the only pair of sunglasses he can find in the glove compartment, and spends the whole drive with one hand over his eyes; either Steve is a much calmer driver when he’s hung over, or Danny should have been riding in cars with Steve like this from the beginning.  
   
The night is a little…hazy. Danny had a hard time remembering where he was when he first peeled his eyelids open to the dusky morning light filtering into the room, and then he had to shut his eyes and breathe through the blind, stupid panic that he was still in a two-star hotel down the street from Grace, drinking himself to sleep every night with Matt a constant presence, constant anchor to reality, and what if the last year had been some dreamed up delusion of a life not half-bad, a life that included Grace and people who care about him who never—  
   
Then Steve had snorted awake on the bed, dragged himself up on one elbow and squinted until he found Danny, face haggard and hair a mess, and Danny let out a shuddering breath of relief.  
   
The night came back in fits and starts after that. Danny remembers almost everything now, including how he’d explained to the hotel staff that Steve isn’t gay. Great.  
   
And he knocked the present he’d given Steve into the ocean, yeah, let’s not forget that. The coin, to… What the hell was he thinking, that Steve isn’t charismatic enough to get friends on his own if he wants them? _Fuck._ Danny digs the heel of his hand into his eye a little, trying to divert pressure from a migraine of monumental stupidity. Just. Looking back— _Wow_ , was that a dick move. Almost as dickish as the whole package disaster that had gotten him into this mess in the first place.  
   
The sudden press of silence from Steve’s side of the car gives Danny a niggling feeling that he might have let out some sort of pained groan without realizing it. It’s the only reason he can come up with for expecting a reaction from Steve at this moment. Maybe.  
   
Danny peeks through his fingers and Steve’s eyes stay on the road behind the shades, hands clutching ten and two like he expects to choke vital information from the wheel. His jaw is tense. It could just be the hangover.  
   
Danny feels the usual bark bubble up in him, the—the little Steve fleas, urging him to poke at Steve until things start snapping, like usual, like the only way Danny knew how to get through to a guy he didn’t know who hijacked his case and his life and then got Danny _shot_ , all in a day’s work— And Danny lets the urge go, lets it drag out of him in a sigh.  
   
“I’m sorry,” he says, mutters, just barely audible over the steady hum of the engine. “I’m— I’m sorry.”  
   
Steve starts to turn his head and winces, decides against it. But the tension drops out of him a little, so whatever he’d been thinking so hard about wasn’t—apparently—along the same track as Danny. “For what?” he gets out, voice rough, genuinely curious.  
   
“For wh—“Danny has to stop and swallow hard, because he really can’t rant at Steve right now, he can’t. He can’t think about Steve not even taking offense at Danny’s gifts because he doesn’t expect _better._ He should expect better from Danny, he should expect the fucking best.  
   
“For letting you talk me into the Camel Snot,” Danny fumbles out because Steve is waiting for an answer.  
   
Steve immediately turns grey. Danny slumps low in his seat and resolves to shut up for the rest of the drive, possibly the rest of the year.  
   
Steve smells like complimentary shampoo and mouthwash; Danny probably does, too. He doesn’t know why that feels important.

~*~

“Okay,” Danny heralds as he uses his elbow to push open the door to Steve’s office and walk inside, hands too full to work the handle. “I’ve got your Green Pomegranate, I’ve got your Spanish Dogberry, English Toffee, Red Zinger, Buffalo Thunder—which sounds kind of culturally insensitive to me but whatever—and may I personally recommend the Can’t-Shut-Up tea?”  
   
“Danny,” Steve says slowly, hand dropped from where it had been rubbing sleep from his eyes to brace against his desk. “What--?”  
   
“I know you said masala,” Danny agrees, lining up the boxes in a neat little row, “but I don’t care what you think, I would’ve noticed you heating milk over a stove to do it right. So.” He indicates his selection of teas. “Voila.”  
   
Steve stares at them askance, swiveling half-around in his chair. “…Which of them is the Can’t-Shut-Up?”  
   
“Constant Comment.” Danny taps the box. “It’s spicy. And orange…y. You’ll like it. I’ll make you a cup.”  
   
“Whoa, wait—“ Steve stands up fast enough that his chair spins off and hits the wall, which is a minor snag but not unexpected. Neither is Danny’s not-so-leisurely retreat being cut off by Steve’s hand on his arm, even if the touch vanishes almost immediately.  
   
“Seriously, Danny,” Steve starts, “whatever residual guilt you’re feeling—“  
   
“Who’s guilty?” Danny deflects. “I’ll tell you what, Steve, it may have escaped your notice but I am a detective. Right? So even though I failed to pick up on certain bigger picture issues, what I have observed is this—Very rarely have there been any kind of tea bags in the little tea bag basket you’ve got set up in the break room other than your standard Earl Grey. What this might tell other people who aren’t detectives is this: it’s your go-to favorite. But they would be wrong, okay, because despite appearances I _know you_ , and I have seen other kinds of tea in the basket for brief periods of time. This tells me that you—being a buy-in-surplus-in-case-of-apocalypse kind of guy—you go out and buy the sample packs. In bulk. And the lonely little decaffeinated Earl Grey packets sit around collecting dust in case there is absolutely nothing left for you to drink. So what I’m doing, is widening your experiences beyond the sample pack, babe.”  
   
Steve takes a breath and hesitates, like he’s not sure what to do with it. He folds his arms over his chest before he comes back with a very eloquently worded, “Why?”  
   
“Because I was married to an Englishwoman, so I know my way around a cuppa.” Danny smiles, close-lipped and challenging. “Go back to your desk, Steven. Don’t try to make me an excuse for shirking on your paperwork.”  
   
What he means is, _Sit your ass down so I can make you a fucking cup of tea,_ and he’s pretty sure that comes through. Even though Steve obeys like he’s waiting for a bomb to go off, lifts the steaming mug Danny brings back with an air of someone who thinks they’re walking into a trap. Steve’s lips purse as he blows away the steam, and Danny knows the instant that the scent drifts into Steve’s lungs.  
   
Something hotter than boiling water lurches deep in Danny’s stomach, wet and painful. He lets out a soft breath through his nose, holds very still until the feeling passes. It’s just a residual thing, just a—Rachel and tea thing, it has to be. The Steve fleas are suspiciously silent, like the calm before the storm.  
   
“Smells good,” Steve says, like that’s one test passed, and takes a careful sip, makes an instant noise of pleased surprise. “Wow. Not too shabby.”  
   
The Steve fleas go _wild_.  
   
“Yeah, it—“ Danny says too fast and swallows to make himself pause. “It was the only tea I’d drink, for a bit there. Okay, back to work.” He claps his hands and looks anywhere but Steve, talking mostly to himself at this point. It still takes him an extra second to move, turn on his heel and take off with another of Steve’s happy “Mmm”s to follow him out the door.  
   
By the end of the day Steve has tried two of the other teas and gone back for a second cup of Constant Comment. He keeps smiling at Danny, confused but content, and Danny’s lower back hurts from how hard he tenses up, every single time.  
   
~*~  
   
The next day Steve tries to bring a mug of tea on a car chase, which works not at all and leaves Danny with scalding-but-pleasantly-scented tea all over his fingers and dripping onto his khakis when Danny cannot physically stand the sight of Steve driving with one hand any longer and rips it out of Steve’s grasp.  
   
In the morning Danny presents Steve with a thermos, one that looks like a regular disposable coffee cup until you pick it up, and realize it’s made of highly durable plastic. Steve thinks it’s the coolest thing since C-4, writes his name on it and then “NOT TRASH” like Chin or Kono might accidentally think they’re just making paper cups out of sterner stuff these days and chuck it out. Danny has to fight not to grin every time he sees Steve with it, an irrational warm feeling deep down chest.  
   
Danny has Grace that weekend, and when he comes in to work on Monday he delivers Grace’s package like he promised, five black bic pens with tissue paper flowers duct-taped painstakingly onto the ends (Danny knows; he was in charge of the tape). They’re ridiculously multi-colored—teal and pink and orange and green—and Steve looks floored by them in a way that makes Danny uneasy for a second, like maybe Steve is struggling to find a way to say _That’s nice but no thanks_ , but when Danny reaches for one Steve smacks his hand away and says, “Get your own, Danno,” and Danny’s ribs pull tight.  
   
It’s the Steve-fleas, those little niggling, biting parasites that itch and itch and itch until Steve smiles, and then they roll right over, bellies up like lapdogs.  
   
Only this time when Steve grins, wide and teasing, they don’t calm down. Not even when Steve says, “Now everyone will know which are mine.”  
   
“Are you accusing me of grand theft pen again?” Danny demands, trying for affronted and landing about a mile off. “I already told you, you need to support your case with evidence, crime scene photos, witness statements—“  
   
“Get out of here,” Steve laughs him off, snagging a purple-yellow-fuchsia flowered pen to continue with his case notes. “Pen-napper.”  
   
An hour later they’re half-way to a crime scene when Danny notices the pen tucked behind Steve’s ear, but when he mentions it Steve just slips it into the breast pocket of his polo shirt. Their suspect starts spilling his guts after Steve snaps his fingers in the guy’s face and barks, “Hey! Eyes up top, sweetheart,” and Kono has to turn away to hide her snort.  
   
The fleas skitter relentlessly, and that little ache never really goes away.  
   
~*~  
   
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Chin says in a tone that suggests the exact opposite, “but keep on doing it. Steve read that last mob boss his rights before accidentally smashing his head into the roof of the car.”  
   
“I was very proud,” Danny mutters sarcastically. But the truth is—he kind of was. Okay, no, scratch that, it took quite a bit of willpower on Danny’s part not to point Steve out to people in the assembled crowd and say, “See that? Huh? That’s my—“ Danny cuts that thought off before it can stray too far.  
   
They’re out getting plate lunches for the team. Danny isn’t sure when they all started thinking of Chin as the go-fer, but it isn’t fair, and he hates the thought of taking Chin for granted. Danny is making it his mission to start pulling his weight in the less fire-fight prevalent areas of their day-job, because if he isn’t doing enough for Steve the odds aren’t that great for the rest of the team.  
   
“I’ve been, uh,” Danny starts, even though Chin would never ask—maybe because Chin would never ask. “I’ve been trying to…give him things.”  
   
Danny stops in his tracks, which is good because they’re in a line that couldn’t be moving slower if it was smack dab in the middle of an Ice Age. He just hadn’t realized… It sounds really strange when he says it out loud.  
   
“I like the pens,” Chin says easily, not a hint of judgment. He glances at Danny. “You okay, brah?”  
   
“Yeah.” Danny shakes off whatever his expression is doing. They take another step closer to the food stand as the line shifts, and Chin is absolutely relaxed, ready to take Danny at face value and move on. Danny loves this guy, really.  
   
“Got any suggestions?” Danny asks, trying too hard for casual.  
   
“On presents for Steve?” Chin blinks, and frowns—not disapproving, giving it serious thought. More thought than is probably necessary. “Hmm. I’m not really sure.”  
   
“Just something he might…need?” Danny flounders.  
   
Now Chin looks concerned, but somehow it’s not in the way that makes Danny want to run screaming in a different direction.  “I’m not sure why—what made you think that you need to get Steve something,” Chin starts, cautiously, “but seriously, brah, I don’t think he wants anything particular from you.”  
   
“Oh,” Danny says.  
   
“ _No_ ,” Chin says sternly, but nicely too. Like one of those gutter guards at the bowling alley. Guiding…ly. If that’s a word. “No,” he says again, “wherever your head just went right then, you’re wrong. You and Steve, man… All I’m saying is, I don’t think he feels like he needs anything from you. Not that you aren’t already giving him.”  
   
“But I’m not—“ Danny breaks off before it all spills out in a hopeless mess of Steve fleas.  
   
Chin’s look is sharp. “Yes,” he corrects, “you are. And I’m not talking about lately, Danny. Steve knows you’ve always got his back. Kono and I know it, too. Steve’s had a lot of people disappoint him in his life, and you’re never going to be one of them. That’s all he really needs. Well, past survivalist basics—food, water, shelter, and enough people around to talk to so he doesn’t go crazy. Crazy being a relative term for McGarrett, you understand.”  
   
“Right,” Danny says, feeling kind of fragile around the edges in a way that almost reminds him of holding Grace for the first time—feeling too much  to feel anything for one startling second, before the whole of everything came crashing on down. Like he’s on some sort of tipping point. He has a fleeting, random thought of wishing he had Chin fleas instead.  
   
Then Chin turns to the lady behind the counter and spins out a complicated string of pidgin, and whatever Danny is feeling gets pushed aside to make room for the uneasy but familiar annoyance of needing to speak another language to get the best food on the island.   
   
It dawns on him that Chin has just as much to thank Steve for, that same life-rescuing generosity that put Chin on the team. So Chin repays it in his own little ways, with the food and the coffee and the doughnuts. And he trusts that anything more Steve needs from him, he’ll be asked to give it.  
   
But Steve’s never asked Danny for anything. Or maybe he is asking, and all Danny needs to do is pay attention.  
   
~*~  
   
 _“Detective Williams, this is your ex-wife. I need you to pick up Grace at eight instead of nine on Saturday because Stan and I are going to an event. Oh my god—_ “  
   
 Tires squeal in Danny’s ear and his steps slow, stop with his breathing, and then Rachel’s voice says, “ _Stay there, sweetheart_ ,” and everything goes to hell.  
   
Steve says, “Danny, what’s up?” and Danny is two seconds away from hyperventilating— _not leaving my daughter—_ when call waiting beeps and it’s HPD and Rachel saying his name and Grace is alright but they’ve been carjacked. Someone carjacked his baby girl and they had guns, Steve is asking if they’re okay and Danny doesn’t know, his voice comes out shaking because he doesn’t know, the world is sideways.  
   
Steve is ducked down, leaning on Danny’s open car door window and Danny can’t look at him, he’ll fall apart, but Steve is saying, “Alright, listen. You need _anything_ , you call,” and it’s so _Steve_ that Danny can’t even answer, just says, “I’ve got to go,” and barely waits long enough for Steve to back off before tearing away from the curb.  
   
It feels like a million years later when he gets to HPD, when Grace runs into his arms and he picks her up to feel her weight, to make sure he’s not hallucinating her here safe and in one piece. A million things buzz by but Danny has two things down solid: Grace is okay, and—once he gets the details of the case—Stan is at fault.  
   
Alright, three things: Grace is okay, Stan is at fault, and Danny’s going to have to call Steve if he doesn’t want to kill somebody.  
   
He tries not to. This last week he has tried so hard to avoid Steve going into Above And Beyond Land for him; Danny still doesn’t feel like he’s earned it, so far in debt that if Steve never does another nice thing for him Danny will still have more than he deserves.  
   
But he’s so mad right now he can hardly see straight, and Steve said _need,_ Steve said _anything_ , and Danny needs Steve to talk him out of punching Stan until he stops twitching.  
   
It takes five long rings before Steve picks up, and when Danny hears Steve’s urgent, “Danny? Are Grace and Rachel okay?” he almost blacks out from how hard he’d been holding his breath.  
   
“Yeah,” Danny gets out, “They are safe, but I am _sick_. I’m in the middle of a panic attack, okay, this little incident just shaved five years off my life.”  
   
He asks about the witness just to hear Steve talk, but Steve won’t play ball for long, tells him to stay with his family like Danny needs to be told, but Danny feels better hearing it, feels better that his team is still handling things okay even though Danny left them hanging, even when it’s hurting him a little to know they can always cope without him.  
   
Danny says, “I’m actually on my way to the airport right now,” still thinking about that, so he isn’t prepared for the sharp, worried silence on Steve’s end of the line.  
   
“What are you talking about, airport,” Steve says, voice quick and low, “Why, you going someplace?”  
   
Danny says he’s going to offer Stan a ride home, and if Steve was anyone else—Chin or Kono or even Matt—they wouldn’t have picked up on his tone like Steve does, instantly.  
   
“Okay, listen to me, alright, I get that you’re pissed, alright, I can hear that,” and why is it only now that Danny can hear that Steve is staying hushed, breathing just a little quicker like he’s on the run, Jesus, he stopped in the middle of keeping a witness safe from who knows how many attackers just to answer Danny’s fucking phone call—“But whatever you do, do not touch him, okay, do not touch him—“  
   
Danny’s throat is closing up at the back, he can’t do this. “Just don’t—don’t worry about me, please, I will handle it, just—get your witness to court, okay?”  
   
He hangs up on Steve and punches the steering wheel, trying to get his breathing back under control before he has to see his ex-wife’s new husband and explain to him, very carefully, how things are going to go down.  
   
Danny doesn’t hurt Stan, and to his surprise it’s not even a close thing. And later, when he has his badge digging into the Housing Commissioner’s forehead he still has Steve’s voice in his ear saying _do not touch him_ , _do not touch him_.  
   
It doesn’t sink in for three long hours, at headquarters, in the middle of a cup of Can’t Shut Up tea, that when Steve asked about the airport he thought Danny might be leaving. He thought Rachel might just grab Grace and go and Danny would follow them and the sad part is that Danny can’t say Steve was wrong to think that. But what Danny could do—what he just did—was restrain himself from doing anything that could get him thrown off the island, or landed in jail, or any number of things that would take him away from where Steve needs him to be. On the team. As his partner. He just wants Danny to stay.  
   
Chin was right. This what Steve wants from him. It might be everything Steve wants from him.  
   
And Danny can’t _give it_ to him.  
   
Steve walks into the office at that moment smelling of sweat, mud, and rainforest, blood on his elbow and scrapes on his hands, stopping in his tracks when he sees Danny, half-smiling and trying to get a read on Danny’s body language, probably. Danny banks down his inner panic and the Steve-fleas as hard as he can, like an iron door slamming shut. He can compartmentalize this, just for right now, he has to.  
   
“Hey,” Steve says, fingers picking at the last of the Velcro straps holding his bullet-proof armor in place like he doesn’t want to take it off and break eye-contact yet. “So I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that since you aren’t in handcuffs no one got killed or brutally maimed?”  
   
“No one even got decked,” Danny says, forcing his hands to flex so Steve can see his knuckles aren’t bruised. “Though plenty of people deserved it.”  
   
“Wow.” Steve looks genuinely surprised. “You broke the HPD mole’s nose in three places for killing Meka.”  
   
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m growing as a person.” Danny swallows and makes himself say the rest, even though it feels a little like something is ripping. “Or maybe then I didn’t have your voice in my head telling me not to.”  
   
For a moment Steve looks so happy—god, so _touched_ —that Danny drops his gaze to the floor because he can’t—he just can’t. “Listen,” Danny says, and doesn’t realize that Steve had been moving forward until he stops at Danny’s word. “I—Thank you. For that. You get your witness okay?”  
   
“Yeah,” Steve says, indulging the subject change vocally if not with his facial expression, which Danny still can’t look at without his heart thumping painfully out of whack. “Chin and Kono are still at the courthouse with her. I just came here to grab a change of clothes.”  
   
Danny scratches at the back on his neck to try to hide a wince. “Do you need me there? I could—“  
   
“No, Danny,” Steve says, walking close enough to grasp Danny’s shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze, and it takes everything Danny has left not to tense up. He doesn’t know why. And maybe he doesn’t even succeed; Steve’s smile turns a little confused, maybe a little down. “Go on home and get some rest,” Steve says, and lets go. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”  
   
~*~  
   
Danny heads for the beach even though he hates it, driving until the road turns to dirt before pulling off. The grass is thick and gold-green in the looming sunset, rolling with the salt-breeze as Danny marches for the ocean. The beach here is less sand than craggy rocks, surrounded by the spray of waves crashing at their bases. Danny gets as close as he can and still stay dry, shoves his hands in his pockets and watches the sky shred with colors. Tries to breathe.  
   
He can’t promise Steve he’ll stay. There are so many reasons he can’t. Jersey has been his entire life up until a year ago, and he’s been clinging to it for so long he doesn’t know how to let go. And even if he could, it’s not his—it’s not his call, he goes where Grace goes, if Stan’s business plucks them off this rock Danny _has no option_.  
   
The fleas are going out of their mind, crawling over his skin in frantic, itching circles, down his spine and up into his hair even when he drags his fingers through it and pulls until it aches. _Why_ , why is this turning him into such a wreck, when there’s been no hint of leaving? Why is this distant, theoretical concept making him feel like he has hives on the inside of his ribs, why does the thought of never seeing Steve again—no, no the _island,_ the island, the task force, Liliha’s bakery, Chin, Kono, why did his brain single out Steve like his partner is more important—  
   
The Steve fleas shudder and lie still.  
   
Oh.  
   
Oh shit.  
   
~*~  
   
 _Gay fleas_ , he has _gay Steve fleas_ , fuck, how is this his—  
   
~*~  
   
Danny sort of blacks out a little—first time that’s happened since college—and when everything fades back into focus he is sitting in the grass, his head between his knees, shaking just a little bit around the hands. No big deal. Also a first since college: head over fucking heels for a guy, though he’d kind of thought that was sort of a phase the last time.  
   
This. This does not feel like a phase. This feels like a being-whacked-over-the-head-with-the-ten-commandments sort of revelation. And most frustrating of all, this feels like something he should have put together a _while_ ago.  
   
Danny puts his hands over his eyes so he can get a grip on his breathing and twitches when he lowers them, startled at how dark it’s getting. The sun sets hard in Hawaii. In Jersey it fucks around a bit, like it just can’t quite make up its mind about setting until it does; in Hawaii the sun dives for the ocean like it’s on fire. Which.  
   
“Oh fuck, just shut up, just shut up already,” Danny hisses at himself, and the sun plunges down beneath the waves.  
   
It doesn’t actually change anything. It doesn’t mean he can or even wants to say, “Sayonara, Grace, have a nice life without me while I stick around in the tropics pining hopelessly for a thickheaded but totally straight ex-Navy Commander, maybe I can spare a weekend for your graduation in a few years.” Yeah, no. The thought makes him feel sick. He still can’t, won’t, is incapable of promising to stay.  
   
But he thinks…he thinks it would be a little easier to be gay for Steve if there was any chance in hell that Steve might return the…yeah. That isn’t going to happen.  
   
Danny takes a deep breath and lets it out slow, tells himself he knew all along that this life was just a little too perfect.  
   
~*~  
   
Steve’s house looks like a trap, which is fucking ridiculous. Danny glares at it anyway. No package on the front stoop that he can see, though he’s pretty sure that one rough night of next to zero sleep doesn’t damage eyesight, thank you very much. Nor does skipping breakfast due to the fact that Danny really isn’t sure he could keep anything down. The morning light looks exactly the same as every single other morning in Hawaii, and if Danny walks in there to see Steve not 110% ready for work, there will be blood. He’s in that bad of a mood.   
   
“Danny!” Steve waves as he slips out the front door before Danny can even get out of his car, and wow, Danny knows he’s in trouble when he wants to hold _that_ against Steve, that he can’t even get through his morning routine like everything is still normal, no, Steve has to come out smiling and dressed and—beautiful, alright, he is, Danny has always known this, his partner is a better looking guy than Danny any day of the week, with his…height and his…teeth. And his eyes.  
   
Danny hates everything. So much.  
   
Steve is holding a set of keys Danny doesn’t recognize by the chain, which he lifts to show off with a bright smile. “Can you park over there today? Got something to show you.”  
   
“Can I park over there, he says, like I’m not capable of moving my car, like he couldn’t have told me when I saw him, oh, last night—“  
   
“Hey,” Steve says jogging up to Danny and getting in the way of the car door before Danny can slam it. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that Danny was going to yank it shut in his face but Danny still blames him, blames his stupid cheerful face leaning down to slip another grin his way. “It’s a surprise. You don’t want me spoiling the surprise, do you, Danno?”  
   
“I fear your surprises,” Danny tells him, as seriously as he can and he hates that his anger is already melting away; he wants to be mad at Steve just a little bit longer. It’s that buffer thing again, only right now it feels flimsy as tinfoil. “I fear they are quite a bit like your interrogation techniques.”  
   
“Nah,” Steve says, nose crinkling up. “Less sharks, less fun. Come on.” He taps the roof of the car and steps out of the way. Danny shuts the door only a touch more forcefully than necessary, and by the time he’s on the other side of the driveway he isn’t even abusing the stick shift.  
   
Steve ducks under his garage door as it opens to gesture at Danny, motions him to walk over. So Danny does, taking a deep breath as he goes. It really isn’t Steve’s fault that Danny is gay for him, it _really isn’t_ , Steve doesn’t deserve Danny raining on whatever parade this is.  
   
It’s the Marquis. “You fixed it,” Danny observes, trying to throw in some enthusiasm, because Steve is just leaking it everywhere, hands gliding down the gleaming black sides of the car as the engine purrs roughly at the attention.  
   
Steve starts spinning off the gear-head know-how that would probably be more interesting on any other day. The gist that Danny bothers to retain amounts to _master cylinder works happy happy joy_ , and a bunch of other technical shit that Danny can’t make himself care about because it’s running, so it doesn’t matter.  
   
“—So I thought we’d drive this to work today,” Steve finishes off, finally turning back to Danny with this half-hopeful, half-smug-yeah-you-know-you-want-to grin and yeah, Danny really wants a ride. _To_ ride. In the car. Jesus.  
   
Danny slaps on a smile, thumb jerking over his shoulder. “Sure, just let me get my stuff from the Camaro.”  
   
Steve beams.  
   
~*~  
   
“Nine miles.” Danny makes the mistake of resting his arm on the roof of the Marquis and nearly searing all the hair off. “ _Nine miles._ You been working on your Dad’s old wreck for six months and you get nine miles out of it, I’m very impressed.”  
   
“This is a classic car,” Steve says, though Danny notices that nearly all of his puppyish glee is gone from this morning, and he isn’t sure right now if he’s glad or sick or sick about being glad but it sucks. “—and classic cars are temperamental, okay?”  
   
“Temperamental?” Danny demands, because no, he knows where this is going and _no,_ what Danny is right now is not temperamental, what he is right now is in desperate need of a drink and a time out until he can pull his shit together.  
   
“Yeah.” Steve points at him. “Just like you.”  
   
Danny’s mouth just starts spitting things, things that might make sense or not, he doesn’t really care. He can’t talk about the giant pink flea sitting on the back of his skull, he can’t, so he’s just—snapping things until he runs out of words.  
   
Steve looks tired in a way that’s less heat stroke and exhaustion and more something Danny doesn’t know what to call. He’s squinting at Danny though his back is to the sun, shirt damp under his arms, collar open as far as it’ll go and there’s that jittering fear again, building up walls Danny swore to himself he wouldn’t put up again, but what the hell is he supposed to do with Steve standing there looking like _that?_  
   
So he deliberately misdirects when Steve asks him what’s wrong, calls Steve’s dad’s car a hunk of scrap metal, gets in the tow truck with a case fresh off the presses and doesn’t apologize, even crammed hip-to-hip with Steve getting quieter by the second as the Coast Guard Station crawls into view.  
   
~*~  
   
The drive is almost as quiet on the ride home, back in the Camaro because they went and picked it up before heading over to the pawn shop earlier in the day. Danny doesn’t know what the hell he’ll do with all these silences around Steve, he isn’t used to them, he doesn’t want them. And they have so, so much to talk about but Danny isn’t sure he can be trusted to speak without making things worse.  
   
“You okay?” Steve asks, voice soft.  
   
“Yeah.” Danny tugs one hand free of the steering wheel to drag it over his mouth to wipe the lie away. _Drop it,_ he thinks hard in Steve’s direction, _please just drop it._  
   
“You sure?” Steve presses. “Because I know I called you temperamental but today was more like a rampaging herd of hostility. You even got all up in Kamekona’s face, and I know you think you’ve got good odds, but all he has to do is catch you and you’re dead. I mean literally. He’s also never done anything to you—“  
   
“I know!” Danny snaps. “I know that.”  
   
“So what’s the deal?” Steve is half-turned to look at him, now, dashboard lights brushing up against his face and darting back into the darkness of the backseat. And people talk about the lack of trees in Jersey City but at least the buildings give you some space, not draping over the road like a carpet that got out of hand, or a lawn that’s never been mowed—it makes Danny feel like he could be crushed between one breath and the next and never be missed. “Come on, what’s been eating you?”  
   
“What’s been eating me? What’s been—“ Danny tries to stop and take a breath, swallow it down but he just can’t find the energy. “This morning, you may recall, I pushed a fuckton of metal up a hill, my back still hurts, I found out today that you keep _grenades_ in my car, which is just so great I can’t even get into it with you right now—remember what I told you this morning about your surprises terrifying me on a fundamental level, this is one of them—uh, let’s see, we found a dead kid on the beach, that certainly put a damper on my day, and I hate…”  
   
Danny loses steam as quickly as he got it, pressing his knuckle hard over his mouth to make it stop.  
   
“You hate what, Danny?”  
   
He can feel Steve staring at him; he doesn’t need to look. “I hate the way I treated you today,” he admits, finally, like scraping off a layer of skin. “And Kamekona, and…everyone. I shouldn’t have been around people today, and I’m sorry.”  
   
Danny glances Steve’s direction when he feels like he can, and hopes Steve leaves it alone.  
   
“It wasn’t—“ Steve starts. Danny bites back a groan. “It wasn’t that bad, really. You’ve just been, ah, strangely nice recently, so I was kind of reeling a little from the climate change. You switch medications or something…?”  
   
Danny knows he’s teasing but it still stings a bit. “Right, because the only reason I’d be nicer to you is drug-induced cheerfulness, that’s…really great.”  
   
“Alright, so tell me the real reason.” Steve folds his arms over his chest and settles in to wait, which—they’re just pulling into his driveway now, Danny hopes he doesn’t get too comfortable.   
   
He puts the car in park and turns to look in Steve’s direction. “There isn’t a reason. …You may have noticed that you’re home now.”  
   
“I did notice,” Steve agrees, smile creeping in and his eyelids low, like he doesn’t know what that _looks_ like. “But I’m good right here.”  
   
It’s a staring contest. _How_ is this Danny’s life, that he winds up in a staring contest with Steven fucking McGarrett, in a Camaro that’s suddenly the size of a tin can with no air to breathe in it and Danny wants to get away, he wants to get away _now_ before his fat mouth opens and something awful falls out—  
   
“I’ll take your truck.” Danny barely gets the words out as he fights off his seatbelt and falls out the door, and he definitely did not mean to look at Steve in all that, he doesn’t want Steve’s look of absolute shock stuck forever on his eyelids.  
   
“Wait, what? _Danny—“_ Steve scrambles out of the car after him, and Danny has a half-second thought of just running back to the Camaro and tearing off into the night, but he’s already most of the way to Steve’s truck which is—blocked by the fucking Marquis.  
   
“Are you _serious?”_  
   
“Danny—“  
   
He jerks away from Steve’s hand on his shoulder and hates himself for it, covers his face so he can muffle the groan of self-loathing. “I’m sorry, I’m just—I’m losing my mind.”  
   
“Obviously,” Steve agrees, probably more than a little serious. His arms are held away from his body, either imploring or ready to tackle Danny to the ground. “Over what?”  
   
Danny rounds on him, glaring. “I’m working on maybe an hour’s sleep and I’m—I’m fucking _frustrated._ ”  
   
“Yeah, I can see that,” Steve says, calming, not patronizing, and Danny knows there’s a difference but it still pisses him off. “Frustrated about what?” he says, and he takes a step closer.  
   
“I can’t give you what you want!” Danny shouts.  
   
Steve stops in his tracks, arms dropping down in fractions like they’re buckling under too much weight. Danny can’t read Steve’s face. It feels like a door being slammed shut. “…Oh.”  
   
“I wish—“ Danny can’t stand it, walks into Steve’s space and touches him, just his arm to make sure he has Steve’s focus when he says, “You have to know—if it was something I could give you I would in a heartbeat. You get that? So you have to find something else.”  
   
Steve’s expression suddenly kicks in with a force like getting hit by a truck—wariness, what the _fuck_ are you doing, and a heaping side-dish of pissed the fuck off. For all of that, when Steve speaks his voice is perfectly even. And dangerous. “Danny. Let go.”  
   
Danny does, instantly, feeling lost and bone-deep nauseous as Steve drags a hand over his mouth like he needs to get a bad taste out of it.  
   
“Wow,” Steve starts, and then leaves it. He smiles, but it’s brief and fake and awful. “You really… You’ve really got to work on your signals, buddy.”  
   
“ _Buddy—?_ “   
   
“Did I ever even bring it up, Danny?” Steve demands, suddenly interrogation-room intense. “Did I ever pressure you, or anything else to make you feel like you had to come to me and say it wasn’t an option? I _knew_ it wasn’t an option without you shoving it in my face. Even recently, even with you—you with the, with the _gifts_ —”  
   
“Whoa, what the hell are you talking about?” Danny demands, finally scraping together enough brain cells to string a sentence. “I distinctly remember not too long ago you asking if it would kill me to admit that I like living on this island. Well, this is me answering your question: apparently, I did not die. Apparently, the only thing bad that happened was my good friend and partner jumping down my throat over, what, you think I’m just humoring you? Huh? You think that if there was a way to promise—to you and myself and Gracie and Rachel and, god help me, even Stan—that we’d be staying on this island until the wheels fall off, you think I wouldn’t jump at that? You think I like living in a clusterfuck of instability where major decisions about my life won’t even get run by me first before Rachel calls and we’re off to—Uzbekistan or Thailand or wherever the hell Stan’s business takes them next? I hate it. Okay. I _hate it_. I hate that any day, I could be gone. I could leave you, and Chin and Kono, I could leave this team a man down and I wouldn’t even have a say in it. So excuse me for pointing out something that was apparently pretty obvious to you.”

  
Somewhere in the middle of that speech Steve started looking stricken, and then panicky. He’s looking everywhere but the space Danny is occupying, hand at the back of his neck. He might be tugging his hair.  
   
“Yeah,” Steve says after a moment, a moment spent like he had to figure out how breathing works, “Yeah, no, you’re…you’re right, I overreacted. Sorry. I’m just.”  
   
“Hold up, hold up,” Danny says, cutting off Steve before he can turn to go into the house. There’s a weird taffy feeling in his stomach, like he’s being pulled two different ways. Steve looks _scared._ “Was that—that’s not what you thought I was talking about.”  
   
“I’ve got it now, though.” Steve holds his hands up when Danny tries to reach for him, shrugging out of the way. “No, it’s fine, Danny. It’s been a long day, things got—“ He wiggles his fingers near his head, eyes off over Danny’s shoulder as something like a laugh slips out of his mouth. “Yeah. Well. I’m really tired, gonna go—“  
   
“Steve,” Danny warns, right on his heels as his partner takes the steps to his house two at a time. “ _Steve!”_ He all-but tackles the screen door, shoulder lodged against the frame just as Steve shoves the latch down. Steve sighs, but he doesn’t tug the handle or try to move Danny out of the way.  
   
He doesn’t back off, either, which leaves Danny with his back to the wall and Steve very much in his personal space. Steve is…really fucking tall at this angle, even with his head tipped down to watch Danny with flat, guarded eyes.  
   
“Whatever you thought I meant was pretty bad, huh, babe?” Danny asks, startled by the rough hasp of his own voice. “I’m sorry.”  
   
Steve deflates like Danny just slid a pin into the balloon of whatever reservoir of strength was holding him up. He sways a little, head still down, eyes shut.  
   
Danny reaches up to cup his neck like this is something they do every day, like it’s the simplest thing in the world instead of the terrifying leap off a cliff he’d been imagining, and he watches Steve’s eyes snap open in surprise and feels an answering jolt down deep in his chest.  
   
“I thought you were telling me you’re 100% straight,” Steve whispers. His hand comes up to circle Danny’s wrist where it’s resting against his collarbone. “I thought you were telling me to…back off.”  
   
“Oh,” Danny says, though it feels like it shouldn’t be a realization at this point. His heart is still pounding like he just played chicken with a freight engine. “Oh, no, I’m absolutely fine with not backing off. In fact, I think you could come on a little stronger because I have to tell you—“  
   
Steve catches Danny’s mouth in a kiss, brief and indulgent all at once, like he fully expects Danny to shove him off. Or at the very least, politely decline. It’s too _short,_ Danny only gets the brief give of Steve’s lips for an instant, a brain-sizzling excerpt of what a kiss between them should be, and he’s leaning into Steve to chase it before it sinks in that this was a test drive for Steve, too. Well, fuck it.  
   
Fuck _this,_ Danny thinks, hands fisting in Steve’s stupid polo and hauling him back within kissing distance. Almost. Steve tugs back, just out of reach, close enough that Danny can feel Steve’s breath against his lips and _still_ —  
   
“What are you…? Babe,” Danny whispers, shifts his hands to touch the thundering pulse under Steve’s jaw, skin tacky with a day’s sweat. Steve shudders and gives in an inch, forehead touching Danny’s, gripping Danny’s arms above the elbow like he needs something to ground him. Danny murmurs Steve’s name, leans down then back up to kiss him, to just let him know that he’s here. He doesn’t mean to linger, but oh, god, he can’t pull away. It’s probably the most chaste kiss he’s had since middle school and at the same time a bright, heady surge of desperate. Danny has to dig his nails into Steve’s shoulder just to stay upright.  
   
The kiss shifts abruptly, and Steve is suddenly kissing _back,_ touching Danny’s face and only breaking to gasp out breaths that sound choked and needy, almost pained. No, definitely pained, definitely hurting, and Danny clutches back because he knows this feeling, he’s been feeling it for months now without having a name to the ache, and who knows how long Steve has been living with it sitting in his chest? Danny knows he starts talking between kisses, fumbling apologies and Steve’s name and “God, babe, I’m so sorry, sorry I’m so dense, I only—“ and Steve presses him against the wall of the house, no room between them  to be anywhere else.  
   
Danny doesn’t mind—doesn’t mind Steve’s leg pressed almost accidentally between his thighs, doesn’t mind Steve everywhere against him. What he does mind is just one thing:  
   
“Inside, Steve,” he gasps and Steve _moans_ and tries to lick Danny’s fucking tonsils, which is fine, so is the hand sliding over the shape of Danny’s ass in his khakis, but that’s not what he meant. He groans, breaks away panting, Steve’s mouth hungry at the curve of his throat. “No, I—babe, inside your _house._ I can see the local wildlife gathering for an airstrike, oh, Jesus, _fuck_ —“  
   
Steve’s hair is too short to grab when he turns his head away from the rough patch of stubble Danny missed in this morning’s shave to look at the bugs swooping lazily around his porch light. He grins, the same crazy grin he gets when he’s about to throw someone in a shark tank, when he’s about to whip out a grenade, when he’s about to— _show off for me_ , Danny realizes with a physical jaw drop.  
   
“You like the local wildlife,” Steve says like it’s ten Christmases rolled into one, and…shit.  
   
Shit, fuck, how did Danny not connect this last dot earlier, that gay for Steve is not even close to what he’s feeling? That the Steve fleas have taken up permanent residence way down deep under his skin to stay?  
   
“These are Christmas card feelings,” Danny blurts, because he has Christmas on his short-circuiting brain, apparently. And then, “What? No I don’t, I never said anything about your wildlife, you have centipedes bigger than my forearm, what kind of sick fuck likes a place for housing the ancestors of Mothra? No thank you.”  
   
Steve lets him finish, beaming at Danny wide enough to get those laugh lines up around his eyes. “You like Hawaaaaii,” he sort of sings, badly.  
   
“Ugh, you big goof.” Danny lets his head thunk down against Steve’s collarbone for a minute, deflecting off Steve’s chin in the process. “I like _you_. Hawaii is just part of the package deal.”  
   
“Damn straight,” Steve says after a moment, sounding strangled and dazed, and oh, something huge slots into place—Steve doesn’t know how to ask Danny to stay, probably wouldn’t if he did know how. All he’s been asking is for Danny to want to be here.  
   
“You’re such a—“ Danny starts but doesn’t finish, knocking their heads together and then using the hand on the back of Steve’s neck to haul him down for another kiss. Steve presses close, too close, close enough that Danny shudders and ruts forward on instinct, clothes and belt buckles making it about the most uncomfortable dry hump of his life and still, amazingly, not a buzz kill. Danny could get off like this, no question, with Steve’s tongue in his mouth and his hands on Steve’s ass, he could definitely, _definitely_ get there. Especially with—Jesus fuck. “Is that a grenade in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Danny asks against Steve’s mouth, and licks away Steve’s breathless chuckle.  
   
“You never know when one might come in handy?” Steve offers, and oh no, no. Danny’s eyes narrow.  
   
And then he grabs Steve by the belt, no coy finger tugging but a fist full of leather as he hauls Steve into the house, punching his birthday in on the keypad as he goes. The little beep announcing the alarm disabled is just barely audible over Steve’s half-amused, half-worried stammering, all, “Come on, Danny, you have to admit it came in handy—“ like he doesn’t even realize Danny is dragging him up the stairs to his bedroom until they’re there.  
   
“I have no idea why you think we’re having this conversation now,” Danny growls, releasing Steve so he can use both hands to yank off his tie. Steve’s eyes are so dark they’re hardly blue anymore, so focused on Danny’s fingers working, undoing the knot and baring his throat as he frees the buttons on his shirt one by one. Danny isn’t wearing anything under it, his one concession to Hawaiian wear and only because he doesn’t care for heat stroke.  
   
Steve is there in an instant, burying his face against Danny’s neck as his tongue slips out to lick along Danny’s clavicle. Danny wobbles a little bit, gasps out, “Wh—“ and has to steady himself on Steve’s shoulders as Steve grips the edges of his shirt to pull him closer.  
   
“I’m sorry the Marquis died this morning,” Steve rumbles, right against his Adam’s apple. “But damn, I am not sorry I got to see you lose the tie when we pushed it up the hill. That was going to last me a whole—“ Steve stops and swallows, turns his face more to Danny’s shoulder like he hadn’t quite meant to say all that out loud. “Fuck, Danny,” Steve breathes, hands restless on Danny’s hips, “I don’t—“  
   
So many ways to finish that sentence. _Know what I’m doing,_ hops right to the top of the list, but Danny remembers his first time with a guy in college and it was nothing like this. Steve knows what he’s doing. He maybe just doesn’t know what he wants.  
   
Good thing Danny has been paying such close attention, lately.  
   
And he might have said something like that out loud because Steve is laughing as he backs up enough to strip out of his clothing, saying, “Oh yeah? You think so?” And this. This Danny can do.  
   
“You want to fuck me,” Danny smirks, letting his pants drop. Steve trips over his own feet. “You want to fuck the hell out of me. You want to fuck me _stupid_.”  
   
“Jesus. Danny,” Steve gets out, strangled.  
   
“You want to fuck the smartass right out of my mouth sometimes,” Danny says, stepping out of the tangle of his belt so he can back Steve up against the bed until it knocks his legs out from under him—Steve sits down hard, and oh, Danny loves this, loves that Steve would never see him as unintimidating just because some people have unnecessary height genes. He runs his thumb over Steve’s mouth, gratified when Steve leans into it.  
   
“You know how I know?” Danny asks, and Steve shakes his head, lips brushing against Danny’s palm. “Because the feeling’s mutual, babe.”  
   
Steve huffs a breathless laugh but gets a grip on Danny’s wrist and won’t let go, even as Danny shifts to cup his jaw. His other hand goes to Danny’s hip and kneads at it, thumb rolling over the cut of his waist and the soft cotton of his straining boxer briefs, down his bare thigh, stopping right at the vulnerable dip behind Danny’s knee. Steve tugs just enough to be a suggestion, not enough to send him toppling, and Danny cards his hands through Steve’s hair just to watch his eyes fall shut and his mouth slip open. And that is a thought, right there, Steve would swallow him down no question, just the sight of Danny’s rogue, goofy thumb straying to Steve’s lips is enough to make his breath hitch up in his throat, and another thought happens.  
   
Danny plants a hand on Steve’s chest and pushes, fast enough that Steve’s hands tighten and pull Danny with him, which is oh, so fine. It means Danny’s knees are on the soft mattress either side of Steve’s hips, means he can shove Steve’s shirt up as he wriggles further up the bed, means he can press his face to Steve’s bare stomach and feel him twitch and gasp at the rasp of Danny’s stubbled kisses. Danny’s fingers fit under the elastic of Steve’s underwear and just yank them down, no patience at all, Christ. The scent of him fills up the room, and Danny needs a second, just a second, before he can safely look without creaming his pants, he wants Steve so bad, wants everything he’s told himself he hasn’t for _months_ , now.  
   
He fumbles a hand around Steve’s cock before he really takes it in, so he has the feel of Steve hot and so damn hard and throbbing against his palm. It’s wet and reddening, already sloppy at the tip, slit winking at Danny as he runs a thumb over it to smear the wetness down the vein underneath.  
   
Steve whines, high and tight, the least Navy SEAL sound Danny has ever heard him make, and Steve’s thighs tense, his hand grabbing for Danny but not quite coordinated enough to reach. “Danny,” he gasps out, like it’s torn free, mouth red-bitten and his eyes so dark.  
   
“Gotcha, babe, gotcha,” Danny promises, so fast it feels like a confession as he grabs Steve’s hand and twists their fingers together. “Good?”  
   
Steve nods, so eager it’s almost a blur, and Danny goes down.  
   
He has never needed something in his mouth this bad, it’s ridiculous how wet his mouth is before it even gets a taste of Steve—sharp, salty, almost sweet, like maybe all those things people have been saying about the miracle of pineapples have been true. Danny slips down too fast, chasing that flavor, Steve so physically hot it’s almost scalding.  
   
Steve curses, a loud, bright, “ _Fuck!_ ” and then a string of strangled noises, and Danny looks up to see Steve biting into the knuckles of his free hand like he’s trying his hardest to be quiet. He pulls off with a pop that makes Steve whimper, spit shining on his lips when Danny tugs his hand away before he can hurt himself.  
   
“Hey, hey,” Danny says, voice already a little raspy, kissing at the bite marks on Steve’s fingers. “No Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in here, babe. Be as loud as you want.”  
   
There’s a wrinkle between Steve’s eyebrows like he wants to defend the Navy even now, here, so Danny kisses that spot too and then his mouth and works his way back down to the head of Steve’s cock.  
   
This time when Danny takes him in his mouth, Steve sighs out a moan—better, getting there—and Danny gives his dick an encouraging suck, guiding Steve’s bitten hand to his hair when Steve just sort of flutters his fingers around Danny’s jaw. _I hope you appreciate this_ , he says with a long look up the expanse of Steve’s heaving chest, _because I do not let just anyone touch my hair._ Steve’s jaw drops, though whether it’s from shock or the fact that Danny’s staring up at him with his lips wrapped around Steve’s dick—hard to tell.  
   
“Danny,” Steve chokes out, his first coherent sound, “ _Danny_ —“ His hips buck up a little like he can’t help it, and Danny lets him move, lets his eyes slide shut and just feel. He can’t get over the weight of Steve’s cock on his tongue, the heady bursts of flavor, the scent of him as Steve rocks up in shaky thrusts, trembling under Danny’s hands as Danny urges him deeper.  
   
“W—Danny, god, fuck—“ Steve breaks off in a whine and his leg jerks up, stills instantly when Danny catches it and lets his stubble scrape along the inside of Steve’s thigh. His hand in Danny’s hair gets frantic, trying to coax him off without pulling; Danny just sucks harder, desperate to do his best and make this good.  
   
Steve comes with a shout and a hot splash of come against Danny’s tongue that makes Danny pull back and gasp, overwhelmed and suddenly so close to the edge himself that he doesn’t know what to _do._ Steve stripes his chin, his bottom lip, and Danny coaxes him through it with his hand and turns his face against Steve’s thigh so Steve won’t be able to see how eagerly Danny licks up the mess on his face. He shouldn’t want it this bad, he feels starved.  
   
The guy Danny fooled around with in college was pretty damn useless after an orgasm, and Danny knows sometimes all he wants to do after a roll in the hay is to keep on rolling right into a deep, satisfied sleep—there’s a small part of him hoping Steve will do the same, leave Danny to figure out what the hell is making him shake like he might fall apart. But this is Steve.  
   
Steve, who pretzels upright before he’s even done twitching, grabs Danny, and hauls him back with him when his muscles do give up anything like coordination. Danny has to scramble to keep from crushing him, has to give up when Steve’s arms tighten and keep Danny pinned tight to his chest. He can feel where Steve’s softening, damp cock is pressed against his thigh, brushing the sweat-damp cotton of the boxer-briefs Danny’s still fucking wearing, his own cock so pounding hard it has to be uncomfortable where it’s pushing into Steve’s belly. Jesus, Danny really is a wreck. He hides his face against Steve’s neck and tries to remember how to breathe.  
   
It takes him a while to figure out Steve is saying things, really wonderful impossible things against Danny’s hair, his temple, voice ragged with gratitude and relief and something else that makes Danny’s insides turn to putty. Steve rolls them over, still talking, keeping them as close as he can and never not touching as he braces above Danny and reaches down, shoving Danny’s underwear out of the way. He only breaks eye-contact for that, one look and then they squeeze shut with a half-moaned, “Fuck,” before Steve uses his mouth to drop a kiss on Danny’s forehead, his cheek, his lips.  
   
“You make me wish I was eighteen again,” Steve murmurs when Danny’s next gasp comes out in a question. And then his hand closes around Danny’s cock, and Danny’s spine arches like a drawn fucking bow, orgasm building like oil spilled on a fire.  
   
“Come on,” Steve says, eyes wicked dark and endlessly warm, “Give it to me.”  
   
Danny does. His fingers dig blunt circles into Steve’s hips and he cries out loud enough Steve is probably going to have some ringing in his ears, but _damn,_ god _damn, fuck._ He doesn’t so much spill his come over Steve’s fingers as he explodes, spurting everywhere, up Steve’s chest to drip down on his own skin as he pants and shudders and gives.  
   
Steve’s grin is wild now, delighted as he gathers Danny up and all-but nuzzles him until Danny can string together enough brain cells to kiss back.  
   
~*~  
   
Steve is a bit of an octopus afterward, which is probably the one thing in the entire universe that Danny will never complain about, not even in a teasing way. The bed is really warm, and Steve is really naked, and he doesn’t wants to leave, ever. The bed, Hawaii, Steve—all of it. God bless the Steve fleas.  
   
Steve moves closer with a happy hum. “Please what?” Then he stops and lifts his head. “Wait, did you say _fleas_?”  
   
Danny grunts, and bumps his nose against the curve of Steve’s shoulder—the maximum amount of energy he can afford to put into making Steve relax and lie back down.  
   
No dice, though Steve does huff out something like a laugh and brush carefully at the wayward strands of Danny’s hair. It’s only going to be worse by morning, Steve better be prepared to deal with that. “Are you always this—effusive after sex?” Steve starts, building up steam, “’Cause I just don’t know, it’s such a huge change from your regular strong and silent demeanor, I don’t know if I broke your Jersey when I rocked your world—“  
   
“Toaster,” Danny says, just to hear Steve laugh. He hides his smile against the pillow that smells like his partner.  
   
“Maybe I should call 911,” Steve says as he settles on his back, one arm up over his head. “Excuse me, I seem to have sexed someone into incoherence.”  
   
Danny narrows his eyes, wants to point out that one very short hand job can hardly be considered sexing, but Steve lets his head roll Danny’s way to show a sheepish grin, and, well fuck. Too much effort.  
   
A cold, ugly little flea—one that isn’t Steve, seems somehow more familiar a parasite and altogether less friendly—creeps up the back of Danny’s neck and bites at the top of his spine. He makes himself stay still, gathering up the words he needs to make himself ask.  
   
“Can I stay here tonight?”  
   
It comes out perfect, not too vulnerable, not too tough-guy demanding, but Steve still looks at him like he just said something even more bizarre than _Toaster._ He frowns, dark eyebrows knitting together. “Um,” Steve says, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve been told I need to be a little more blunt about these things.”  
   
He rolls over on his side and gathers up Danny’s hands, fingers closing around his wrists; Danny lets him because…it’s nice, and he doesn’t have to do anything but let it happen, and he loves and trusts Steve and he trusts his fleas, which are all humming with contentment.  
   
Steve gives Danny’s wrists a little squeeze, and grins, and says, “Stay.”  
   
And Danny says, “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic can be found [here](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/335281.html) on LJ if you're interested!


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